a friend has a double deep that he wants me to help him split. what i plan to do and correct me if i am wrong is to find the queen and leave her in that box and leave it at the original location. inspect the box that is queen less and make sure it has honey, pollen,eggs and capped brood and place a new queen in and move it about 100' away. and in a week bring it back and place it next to the parent hive. is this correct?

This is a question as much as a statement, because I really don't know. But what is the 100' move suppose to do for you?

« Last Edit: May 11, 2013, 10:27:05 PM by Moots »

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Move the parent hive 8 or 10 feet with the Queen in it. Leave the second deep in the old position, Give it about one third of the brood. most of the field bees will return to it. Both should do fine. If you move 100 feet they will return any how. My 2/c. :) d2

I agree with don. Move the box with the old queen and leave the box with the new queen in the original spot. I don't know why it has to be moved 8-10 feet. I would place it where you're going to want it. You can place a branch in front so any bees leaving will do a reorientation flight. Some will return to the old location with the new queen, others will return to the new location with the old queen.

The queenless box needs to be left queenless for a while, from 12 to 24 hours depending on who you ask, before you put a new queen in.If I were going to split and bring the box back close to original location I think I would do a walk away split the way M Bush talks about on his website. Alittle less moving around and accomplishes same thing.

I would put a bottom board on each side of the current hive, preferably facing the current hive. Then put an empty box on each bottom board. Then take all the boxes down to the bottom one, and then deal the frames (one for you and one for you) as you go through that box. Fill the sides out with any honey or pollen that is in the next box. basically you are splitting the resources between the two new hives. Keep an eye out for the queen, but if you don't find her don't worry about it. The queenless part will raise a new queen. The returning field bees will go into one or the other of the hives. If they populations are uneven in a week, swap places. Don't wait longer or you may confuse an orienting virgin queen.